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Claims that Prayer Cures Disease

Washington recently declared a state epidemic for pertussis (whooping cough). Pertussis hasn’t been this bad in Washington for decades. The number of cases (close to 2000) is already ten times the number from last year.

Before routine child vaccination in the 1940s, pertussis caused thousands of fatalities annually in the U.S.

You might imagine that this is a story about anti-vaxers, afraid of a perceived vaccine-autism link, who have refused to vaccinate their children and helped create this epidemic. Not this time. The anti-vaccine movement seems not to be a factor.

Instead, the interesting angle on this story is not disease prevented by vaccine but disease prevented by prayer. Kingdom League International, an online ministry based in western Washington, says in a brief article titled “Whooping Cough Epidemic Halted in Jefferson County”:

Churches in Jefferson County [one of those hardest hit by the statewide epidemic] used our strategy to mobilize prayer and establish councils to connect in 7 spheres of society.* On Mar 27 they met and a County Commissioner asked them to pray about the whooping cough epidemic. … As of April 13 there has not been one case reported. From epidemic proportions to zero.

A bold claim, but the only evidence is that of the improvement in statistics. The elephant in the room, of course, is whether we can find natural explanations besides prayer to explain the facts. And, of course, we can. Epidemics peak and then diminish, particularly when there’s an effective health system in place that can administer vaccines. There were 21 confirmed cases for this county in 2012, with no new cases since mid-April. Is this remarkable? Is this unexplained by the efforts of the public health system? Looks to me like an epidemic that’s simply run its course.

Not surprisingly, I jumped into a discussion with the author in the comment section. Aside from being asked my faith status (though I’m not sure how this affects one’s ability to evaluate evidence), I got the expected tsunami of miracle claims—a bad knee healed, a barren woman now pregnant, lung cancer cured, demons cast out, blindness healed, a stroke patient recovering, a rainstorm to break a heat wave, a cracked rib healed, and so on.

(For comparison, consider the pinnacle of medical cure sites, Lourdes. After 150 years as a pilgrimage site and with six million visitors per year, the Catholic Church has recognized just 67 miraculous cures.)

I pointed out to my Kingdom League correspondent that natural explanations hadn’t been ruled out. Surprisingly, there was no interest in doing so.

I tried to portray this as a missed opportunity. If these claims are more than just anecdotal, then this group should create a dossier of x-rays, test results, photographs, or other evidence, both before and after the miracle. Add the report of the doctor who witnessed the change and then show this to the Centers for Disease Control or an epidemiologist or some other qualified authority. Why hide your light under a basket? Jesus had no problem using miracles to prove his divinity (John 10:37–8).

There seems to be no shortage of these miracles (at least in their minds), so if one miracle claim isn’t convincing, then pray for some more and try again to convince the skeptics.

That this group has no interest in going beyond feel-good anecdotes makes me think that they understand that their claims wouldn’t withstand scrutiny, not because skeptics wouldn’t play fair, but because honestly evaluating the claims would show them to be little more than wishful thinking.

Pray v. To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Addendum 6/1/12: After further discussion with the author of the KLI article, he reminded me that links in the comment section give more than anecdotal information, including this article in the Southern Medical Journal.

50 thoughts on “Claims that Prayer Cures Disease”

Another example of Bob’s hatred of the Christian God. He attacks God’s people for praying for health against disease. Boy there is a harm against American society people praying for health.
Again we see Bob’s inconsistency and lies.

Bob C did give you some evidence, but apparently not of the kind you expected. He pointed to you some debates where he thinks believers won. He also attempted at an argument against atheistic morality.

” So if a Christian’s spouse develops a disease and prays to God for wisdom and healing of her spouse in her personal private prayer time. Please tell me the harm on society this has?”

Keep in mind this is a personal prayer from the child of God to her Creator. All alone in her private time. Asking God for wisdom and healing. Wisdom can include making the right medical decision’s; healings thru medicine or God’s healing. What harm does this have on society?
Do not need to hear straw man arguments about snake handlers, Christan Science. Or any cults that are not Chrsitian.
So again I ask how does this harm society? Answer this question!

” So if a Christian’s spouse develops a disease and prays to God for wisdom and healing of her spouse in her personal private prayer time. Please tell me the harm on society this has?”

“Getting scolded by you for not answering a question is pretty rich! I’ve asked you a dozen times (it seems) for evidence and been ignored.u..”

As I have said the fingerprints of God are everywhere. In His creation and His absolute laws ( which you can not account for) which are written on the hearts of all men. But any evidence you see you reject for your atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic worldview will not allow you to accept it. Take the laws of logic. They reflect the nature and mind of God. Do I expect you to hold to that presupposition? No! But you can not account for the “Laws of Logic” in your naturalistic materialistic worldview. Sure you use the laws of logic and use them well. But you can not account for them. The laws of Logic are non material, universal, and invariant. God is non material, universal, and invariant. How does an Atheist account for non material, universal, non changing laws? You can not look under a rock and pick up the laws of logic.

There is the evidence of God. Will your presuppositions accept this? Of course not. Gods invisible attributes are everywhere ( Romans1) but you reject them and turn them into a lie. But you and all men are without excuse because you know this God in your heart. Which you show every time you blog against Him.

This is simply meaningless to someone who doesn’t share your views. Someone from another religion could say, “Oh yeah? Well I see the fingerprints of my deity!” Giving an evidence-less claim like this will convince no one. It simply pats fellow religionists on the head and assures them (again, without evidence) that they’re right.

In His creation and His absolute laws ( which you can not account for) which are written on the hearts of all men.

(1) Seriously, it is tedious to keep repeating arguments. Wouldn’t it be fair if you’d read and consider my arguments like I do yours?

(2) This is a restatement of your claim without evidence. Simply restating your claim (perhaps with a louder or more shrill voice) doesn’t do anything to your argument.

(3) You certainly can’t account for the foundational laws in the universe. Simply saying, “God made them!” is religion, not science.

(4) There are many questions at the frontier of science. The most charitable interpretation of your statement is, “Science doesn’t have answers, so therefore God did it,” which is laughable. Even if you disproved a scientific theory (rather than simply observing that science has unanswered questions), that gives no weight to any alternative theory. “If science can’t explain it, then it must be Yahweh” is no argument.

But any evidence you see you reject for your atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic worldview will not allow you to accept it. Take the laws of logic. They reflect the nature and mind of God.

Do I expect you to hold to that presupposition? No!

If you come at this from a presuppositionalist view, then you have no argument that a skeptic can use.

But you can not account for the “Laws of Logic”

(Again)

(1) Nor can you

(2) “Naturalism has no explanation yet” doesn’t imply that God did it.

” Maybe the laws of logic are a challenge to atheists, but that argument fails to prove that God cares about us and that he sent us messengers…”

There is your problem trying to “prove” God. The Bible never tries to “prove” God. The apostles, disciples, nor Jesus try to prove God. How does the first words in the Bible start? In the Begiining “GOD”. The Bible and assumes there is the one and only God ( YHWH) . Any Christian who tries to prove God by arguments like the cosmological, teleological, arguments are foolish.
The sinner needs to hear one message that he has broken God’s law and is under His wrath. God gave His Son to pay for the sins of those who bow the knee to Christ and follow Him. If one ignores all the fingerprints of God and rejects God in his unrighteousness. That one will pay for his own sins . And all men know this God and are without any excuse. So I will not play games with Bob S. arguing over some stupid cosmological argument. Bob knows God; hates God; is is without excuse. Bob is also responsible for all his actions, including raising his family in rejection of God.
Perhaps we can ( as I do) ask God to grant Bob S and his family the gift of repentance. And by God’s Grace God will open Bob’s heart and save Bob and his family.

So just after you told me that you won’t waste your time arguing for God, you do just that by pointing to what you perceive as gaps in scientific knowledge?!?

Anyway, it’s just false that atheists hate God. Well, a few of them may indeed repress a need for belief, but not everyone. And in fact, a few believers may as well repress their skepticism and lack of faith. Too much faith is suspicious.

I’m sad that you turn to the Bible to settle an issue that pertains to psychology. If I want to know what Jesus taught, I will read the Bible. If I want to know what atheists think, I will ask them.

Jesus taught more on Hell than anything else in the Bible. And taught more on Hell than any one else in the Bible.
Jesus also taught that only those the Father gives to Jesus will be saved. ( John 6) And Jesus taught that only those Jesus WILL”S to reveal the Father to will be saved. ( Matt 11)

Jesus also said ..” I am the way, and the truth, and the life, No one can come to the Father except through Me” John 14
Notice Jesus did not say I am A WAY ( among many others) . There is no other way then through Jesus . There is absolute truth of Jesus. and there is no life without Jesus.

This is what I’ve been saying. You really need to get your science from, y’know, science-y sources, not sources with a religious agenda.

The Big Bang is an expansion event, not a creation event. The Big Bang theory does not say that something comes from nothing.

There are hypotheses that do suggest that nothing might be unstable and that this would lead to something. Indeed, cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has a book titled A Universe from Nothing, in which he argues that this is indeed possible, despite what you think is reasonable, though this isn’t the consensus view (yet).

William Lane Craig’s approach to this is to appeal to common sense which, to anyone who’s even slightly informed about quantum physics or cosmology, is hopelessly inadequate. Yeah, something from nothing does seem odd, but so what? Let’s follow the evidence. Let’s let the big boys handle the science and we’ll sit at the sidelines and not meddle.

If a quantum physicist told you that being and nothingness are exactly the same thing, will you believe him? Because scientists, no more than God, can break the laws of logic. Sure, quantum physics challenges many of our assumptions, but if their theories are to have a meaning, they need to rely on basic laws of logic. For instance, when a quantum physicist tells us that two particles are entangled, I assume that this means something and not something else, which implies that the principle of contradiction is valid.

They can’t? Why is that? Because we know for a fact that the laws of logic admit no exceptions or changes? That’s quite a bold statement that needs evidence.

Seems to me that we rely on the laws of logic until they fail. At that point, we don’t.

One law of logic is “Either a proposition X is true, or not-X is true; they can’t both be true.” What do you do about a photon that is both a particle and not-a-particle? I doubt that’s an actual rejection of logic, but, as you said, quantum physics challenges our assumptions.

You see, in some cases, the language physicists use is inadequate, but it does not mean that what they know about the world leads them to reject the laws of logic.

What happens is that in some experiments, photons behave like particles. In some other experiments, they behave like waves. Does it mean that logic is made worthless? Logic does not depend on classical physics, Bob. The photons’ actual nature is a mystery. It is not-wave and not-particle, and logic does not preclude it. One is reminded of Kant’s noumenon.

Logic would implode if in the same experiment, the photons behaved both like particles and like not-particles. But this is not the case.

So… when scientists tell me that the world come from nothingness because “nothingness is unstable”, it is either that they have a different concept of nothingness than mine, or that they are talking nonsense.

What of logic does “something comes from nothing” (as I believe Krauss claims is not implausible) violate?

when scientists tell me that the world come from nothingness because “nothingness is unstable”, it is either that they have a different concept of nothingness than mine, or that they are talking nonsense.

And when I hear it, it reminds me that (1) we need to make a distinction between what one scientist says and what the scientific consensus is (I see the latter as binding) and (2) quantum physics has made a number of paradoxical claims that, unfortunately for common sense, have been well verified by experiment. I guess common sense loses.

What I hear you saying (please clarify) is that you have either a philosophical or a common sense objection to a claim from physics, which is about as meaningful as having a culinary or a sartorial objection to a claim from physics.

No, I have a philosophical objection to a popular, trade book with an atheist agenda that claims to be the right interpretation of tough physics, physics which is not easily translated from complex mathematical formulae into everyday language.

In that case, the problem is that nothingness cannot be “unstable”, because nothingness lacks any property. I mean, real nothingness, not quantum vacuum or another weird reality that physicists call nothingness or vacuum or emptiness or hole for want of a better name.

However, if you could point to me a recent physics textbook that held that the universe comes from nothingess, and which has a genuine understanding of that philosophical concept, I may pay more attention. Because textbooks are a better place where to find the consensus than single popular books.

I’m confused. We have a physics argument being made by a physicist and you object … on what grounds now? I mean, what are you bringing to the party? I get that it offends common sense, but I think we agree that that counts for squat.

If your point is that this is a popular book that will probably cut corners and that you want to see a peer review of it or you want to see this in its raw physics form (like in a college textbook), OK, that makes sense. But in that case, I think your position ought to be that you withhold judgment. Sounds to me like you’re, instead, rendering your judgment.

And, as I said before, your point about the importance of the consensus view (rather than just one guy’s view) makes sense.

Though we could be using different definitions, I don’t see the role of philosophy here. Bringing philosophy to a physics debate is like bringing a trout to a knife fight.

You follow the science that comports with your Athesistic worldview. And reject the thousands of Scientist’s that hold to a different worldview.
Yes, paint a picture that all the areas of scientific theory all assume Neo Darwinian Micromutational Evolution.. And all theorys agree on the study of life. You arbitraily pick the “Science” that supports your worlview.
And I did give you an example. The Fossil evidence argument. So which branch of Science to you hold to? The neo Darwinian view, or the Puncuated equilibrain view? Both at are odds with each other. And both call the other heritics.
We all start our presuppositions on a faith assumption. The Chrsitian puts his faith in a Sovereign God who controlls and governs all things. And the Athesist who puts his faith in Science, Phiosophy, naturalism etc. All presuppositions ( the network of basic beliefs) start on a faith.

paint a picture that all the areas of scientific theory all assume Neo Darwinian Micromutational Evolution

The consensus within biology is clear. We laymen will just have to suck it up and accept that.

(And I think “evolution” is what the adults call that discipline. Let’s just use that.)

You arbitraily pick the “Science” that supports your worlview.

Nope. Nothing arbitrary.

So which branch of Science to you hold to? The neo Darwinian view, or the Puncuated equilibrain view?

You can answer this question all by yourself: what is the consensus?

And, you do know that scientists on both sides of this issue (that’s a lot tamer than your fevered brain makes it out to be) accept evolution, right? Your imagined Great Schism doesn’t exist–those kinds of things happen only within religion.

We all start our presuppositions on a faith assumption.

Oh? Show me where I have faith. I have trust in science, if that’s what you mean.

The Chrsitian puts his faith in a Sovereign God who controlls and governs all things.

I don’t think that saltationists disagree with neodarwinists over the basics. I have yet to see a saltationist claiming that new species can appear in a single generation. I think that saltationists would agree that single mutations have only limited effects, and that a new species arises by an accumulation of small mutations over hundreds of thousands of years. And that the whole process is guided by natural selection.

All basic belief systems ( presuppositions) start on a faith based belief that there presuppositions have a standard of truth. If you presuppose that the concensus of science (Argumentum populum a fallacous argument) is true , you accept that by faith. As any Philosopher will tell you. As I do with my presuppositions. And I to have trust in those presuppositions. Trust and faith are synonyms

Relying on the scientific consensus is not a fallacy, it is a safe choice for a layman, who is not familiar with a scientific field. We rely on those who know. That’s why when I am ill, I go to the doctor’s and not to a new age healer.

An argumentum ad populum is a fallacy in ethics, though. It’s also wrong when there is no reason to think that the “populus” is informed and wise.

Bob S. if you hold to the consensus I just heard theat only 41% of Americans are now pro-choice. Looks like you best join the consensus and convert to pro- life.
Seems like the Athesist are droping the ball? What is this new turn around? One reason I heard was Science has admitted human personhood begins at conception. So thanks to the scientific concensus more women realize and can no see their 21 day old babies heart beat. They can relate to that little human being. Good for science.

You mean that discipline that rejects God’s Plan of Creation?? How can any discipline that throws God in the toilet with something as evil as “Neo-Darwinian Marxist Satanist macro/micro-evolution” ever be trusted to provide anything good and honest?

With regard to long term reasons, over the past two decades technology has moved Americans in the pro-life direction. With the wide availability of ultrasounds, Americans can see that the unborn baby is truly a human being and not a blob of tissue as the abortion industry used to make people believe, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Looking at an ultrasound image of an unborn baby leads to only one conclusion: the unborn baby is a person, no matter how small (to paraphrase Dr. Seuss).

Moreover, one must acknowledge that this pro-life trend has been growing because of the great work pro-life advocates have been doing through the many excellent activities they engage in on a regular basis, for example, providing women alternatives to abortion, educating the public about abortion, witnessing each year at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and praying to soften the hardened hearts of those who favor abortion and end this evil.

The recent poll is a heartening illustration that we as a nation are moving in the right direction. This trend will continue as more and more Americans realize how extreme the Obama Administration’s abortion agenda is and how that agenda is implicating all of us in abortion whether through the use of our tax money or through our health insurance policies at work. It will also continue as more and more Americans become educated and understand that abortion ends the life of a human being. And, it will continue as more and more Americans pray for the culture of life to replace the culture of death in this country.

It’s a complicated question. When you look at the entire study, we find that there’s more to the story.

Here’s a tip: when the ACLJ (or any other conservative site) says something that is especially appealing, double check. Be skeptical. That’s how I am with sites that give me what I like to hear, and it does help avoid embarrassment. IMO, conservative sites are far likelier to twist the facts, but that’s just one opinion. Regardless, I think this skepticism is good advice.